ORDEAL:
Anne Bass and Julian Lethbridge were injected with a liquid that home invaders demanding $8.5 million said was a lethal virus. (Splash News)

(Splash News)

He said, “I love you, Anne” — then prepared to die.

Wealthy philanthropist Anne Bass’ boyfriend yesterday mesmerized a jury with a frightening account of how three armed men “dressed like ninjas” invaded her Connecticut mansion with a “war cry,” tied them up — and then injected them with a purported “virus” that would kill them within 24 hours unless Bass coughed up $8.5 million.

“It felt like a flu shot,” Bass’ companion Julian Lethbridge testified in New Haven federal court on the first day of the criminal trial of Bass’ ex-butler Emanuel Nicolescu, who is accused of masterminding the botched extortion plot.

“They injected me by sterilizing my shoulder, exactly like an inoculation . . . I thought it was poisonous or they were putting me to sleep.”

“I couldn’t reconcile the fact that if I was being killed, why would they disinfect the injection site?” Lethbridge said about the April 15, 2007, home invasion at Bass’ lavish Litchfield County residence, which sits on a 1,000-acre estate.

“Then I heard the preparation and rustling of the same thing going on with Anne.”

One of the knife-toting thugs then announced: “Now here’s the thing: They were just injecting you with a very virulent virus. And with this virus, the symptoms take 20 to 24 hours to appear, and when the symptoms appear, it’s almost certain to be fatal.”

But Bass and Lethbridge didn’t die — the “virus” turned out to be a harmless liquid, believed to be a blue dye used to make ink.

Nicolescu “knew when Anne Bass would be there, when she would not be there. He knew a good time to attack,” McConnell said.

Bass, the ex-wife of Texas billionaire Sid Bass, had just taken a bath and Lethbridge was dozing off when the boyfriend heard “a loud crashing noise and a sound like boots running up steps,” the prosecutor said.

Bass tried to bar the kitchen door against the invaders, but they forced their way in. The goons then bound her and Lethbridge’s hands with zip ties, blindfolded them and took them into a bathroom — where they were injected and threatened with the bogus “virus.”

The prosecutor said Nicolescu, his former roommate Nicolae Helerea, a k a Michael Kennedy, and Stefan Barabas used two-way radios to coordinate their movements because Nicolescu knew cellphones would not work in the remote area.

The bumbling robbers discussed various ways to get the money they wanted from Bass after she told them she didn’t have such a large amount of cash on hand, the prosecutor said.

Eventually giving up their grand dreams of easy riches, they fled in a Jeep stolen from Bass’ property, which was later ditched in New Rochelle.

DNA found on the steering wheel was consistent with Nicolescu’s, the prosecutor said. And Nicolescu’s cellphone was used to make a phone call near the Home Depot where the Jeep was dumped.

Authorities also later found an accordion case in Far Rockaway, Queens, that contained a homemade knife that Nicolescu allegedly had received as a gift from his father-in-law and a laminated phone card containing Bass’ personal information — as well as syringes and vials of blue dye, the prosecutor said.

Only Nicolescu has been arrested in the case. The two alleged accomplices remain at large.

Nicolescu’s lawyer Audrey Felsen told jurors that the ex-butler “did not do the crimes. He did not participate in them. He didn’t plan them. He didn’t help anybody plan them. He didn’t knowingly help anybody after the fact.”

She strongly suggested that Helerea/Kennedy is the culprit responsible for the baseless charges against Nicolescu.

“Michael turned out not to be a friend. He turned out to be a scorpion,” Felsen argued.